My Lavender Harvesting ZEN. An example of a Zensory Experience in Nature. ZENs – fostering spiritual development in young children and adults. Connect with me to learn more about my ZENs project and mission! Facebook: Penned by LindseyAnn, LinkedIn: LindseyAnn, Instagram @pennedbylindseyann

I am so excited to share with all of you that The Safety Jewelsis now available on Amazon! Head on over to my Author Page and purchase a copy to support the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s mission.

A walk to school… A shield of jewels… Do you know the 12 safety rules? The Safety Jewelsis a children’s picture book that follows a young girl, Kozette, as she narrates her walk to school and practices safety rules, while building her shield of safety jewels. Shari Brandt artfully incorporates pastel drawings and backgrounds, coordinating with the jewels, to soften the tone as young readers learn about safety guidelines recommended by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
This gem of an educational children’s book appeals to preschool and young elementary school readers. Resource pages at the back of the book highlight the mission of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and provide craft and educational game ideas to extend the learning and reinforce the message of this essential and informative book.
This poem of Kozette’s jaunt presents an opportunity for parents and children to discuss the importance of following safety rules, and to identify safe places and people within their community, while enchanting young readers with engaging rhyming and an easy cadence. Join Kozette on her walk to school, learn from her the 12 safety rules, and build your own Shield of Safety Jewels!

The front cover, dedication page, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children resource page, and back cover. A portion of U.S. and international sales will go to support the mission of the NCMEC and International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. Look for the release to be by the end of next week! In […]

Just Imagine!! A Garden that Cultivates the Garden Within while cultivating gardens in the outer world! A Magical place for young children to develop spiritually as well as cognitively. Close you eyes. Just Imagine the possibilities!

A garden that nurtures through nature, the mind, body, and Spirit of children and their families

A garden in which children and families engage in transformational learning by connecting to our natural world

A garden that enriches the mind, nourishes the body, and cultivates the Spirit through meaningful experiences, organic food, breathing, and meditation

Imagine a Garden…

Rooted in compassion, gratitude, kindness, and generosity

A garden where speaking the truth, and respecting life, mind, body, and property are revered

A garden where personal reflection is emphasized while engaged with the natural world

A garden where children and families learn gardening and green living practices

Imagine a Garden…

A garden where children learn the foundational building blocks of becoming globally aware citizens, practicing acceptance of diversity, collaboration between diverse cultures, sustainability education, and care for the earth and humanity

It has taken me a week to be able to sit down and write this post, not completely sure that I am comfortable sharing such a raw moment in my life. However, to anyone who chooses to read this, I hope that you will draw some inspiration and comfort from my experience.

Last week I hit a spiritual low. Snake’s belly low. Crisis of faith low. Pitch dark, sobbing, not able to catch my breath low. Clutching a pillow to my chest as if it were a life vest low.

A few words from a text, that in my heart I knew were false, sent me in a downward spiral to a place so dark. A place I’ve only ever been once before, about a year ago.

For hours I sat on the floor, death grip on the pillow, paralyzed by fear and doubt, desperately counting my gratitude amidst audible sobs and pleas for help. Questioning what I’m missing, what I’m not seeing. Am I a fool? Who do I think I am? Doubts, doubts, doubts and more doubts. Fear at its ugliest. Asking… no, pleading really… for awareness and clarity. Just hit me over the head if you must! What the #*@& am I missing?

Sitting with such pain and fear is necessary, according to Buddhist practice, for pain and fear are our teachers. And so I sat….and sat….and sat, clinging to what minute ember of faith I could feel, until I was at least able to begin to breathe normally again.

While clarity and strength took days to resurface, I managed to pull myself together to run a necessary errand. If I could have put it off a day, believe me I would have. But it was meant for me to do that day, and at that specific moment, no matter the emotional wreck I was at the time.

Still red-eyed from crying, and disheveled, I drove down the road toward my destination, and in the perfect timing that is Universe, I looked up into the trees along the side of the road and saw my spirit animal. A Red-Tailed Hawk.

My Spirit Animal – Aumakua

Digression – These hawks are very prevalent in my area, however, I never noticed them with any level of awareness until after my mother died, nearly 11 years now. Since then, I am aware of their presence and see them when I am in most need of reassurance and comfort. Just the day before I had seen three! The first was on my way to a meeting and two more on the way home from the meeting! Needless to say, it was a great meeting. Sometimes their presence is a surprise beacon, like just yesterday, and then I know that I am on the correct path.

Once home, I spent the remainder of the day perilously reaffirming my blessings, meditating, and focusing on my breathing, struggling to remain only in the present moment, mantras running through my mind, as if on auto-pilot.

Feeling completely shattered, fiercely wanting to retreat into hermit mode, I was mulling over canceling my training for the week. However, when morning dawned, I decided it might be beneficial to go and throw some heavy weight around. I did and it was exactly what I needed, add in some poignant therapy from the best trainer in the world!

More clarity came from sharing my breakdown with her, perilously keeping the tears at bay as best I could. At the end of our session, she summed up part of the crisis by revealing that I have not yet received any fruit from my arduous toil along this journey. That, and my spiritual fruit was less than fresh!

Aha, yes, I need a piece of fruit! Any piece of fruit. Even if it’s just a blueberry! A cherry! A raspberry! Could you please just throw me a piece of fruit! While I am waiting on the watermelon (I know to expect miracles) 😉 I am starving for any piece of fruit to sustain me until the harvest.

And now a week later, I am stronger in faith, yet still expecting a watermelon but asking for a blueberry, cherry, or raspberry while enlightened enough to know that another crisis is inevitable. For each crisis is necessary to break down the ego a little more in order to strengthen our spiritual connection.

This I must do alone. I retreat into the darkness. I sit with the pain and the fear. I beg, plead, scream, and cry until exhausted, when finally silence then speaks its truth. Expect the watermelon, but here’s a blueberry for now.

A friend with whom I shared this experience asked why I hadn’t called her, or anyone. My answer is simply that I must sit with this alone. It is my journey. My path. My growth. My test. My awakening.

We all will experience times like this in our lives, but we must not expect, nor allow, someone to rescue us from it. They are incapable and it isn’t their responsibility. Some may benefit from comfort from a friend, and that is fine. But we all must push through the darkness and emerge on our own efforts, spiritually stronger than before.

Expect the watermelon but be grateful for the blueberry, cherry, or raspberry to sustain you until harvest.

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted here regarding my first children’s book. In fact, those of you who are most observant have noticed that I had removed the milestone marker from my sidebar that denoted the countdown to release. Look in the sidebar….it’s BACK!!

OK….it’s not this bad…LOL

In short, I hit an unexpected pothole that caused a flat tire this past January with word from my publisher that they were halting all production and were “in transition”. What that means for me is no book; they are not forthcoming with any additional information. What they have communicated is that they are working to place all authors with a new publisher….we shall see. In the meantime, I have decided to proceed with a new title and self-publish!

This new title is “The Safety Jewels”, in which we meet Kozette as she narrates her journey to school utilizing self-protection gems, forging her shield of self-defense. I am excited to be working with the talented Shari Brandt as the illustrator of my project.

This title is based on the guidelines from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US. Proceeds from US sales will support this organization’s efforts. In addition, because this title will be available on Amazon, hopefully by July but I’ll continue to post updates, it can be purchased outside the US on Amazon’s international sites. This is where I am in need of assistance from all of you that reside in countries other than the US, particularly Canada and Europe for now.

What is the national organization in your country that champions efforts to provide resources to combat this serious issue of missing and exploited children? If you could please either provide assistance through the comment box or visit my contact page and provide your assistance through that outlet, I would very much appreciate this. I would like to support these organizations through my Canadian sales and European sales respectfully.

Despite losing money to the previous publisher without receiving any book ☹, lessons learned, I am able to move this book project along,

just need a tug and repair

just a bit stuck in a ditch at the moment and in need of some assistance in getting out. Prepare the tow trucks for standby!! A fundraising campaign may be in the works 🤔

Thank you to all of you for your continued support of this blog and along this maiden journey. I am hopeful that by summer we will be reading and enjoying this first book with the young children dear to us, as well as supporting those children suffering and less fortunate, but no less worthy and deserving, through the purchase of “The Safety Jewels”.

This past week I had the very distinct pleasure of sitting down with the author of the children’s book, Our Father (in other words), Penn Ketchum. I asked him to bring a copy of his book because admittedly I had not yet had the chance to get my hands on one and I very much wanted to read it. He obliged, giving it to me as a gift! Thank You!!

Mostly, I wanted to hear Penn’s story of his journey from concept to book in hopes of learning a few things to take along with me on my journey and learning what potholes in the road to avoid. Our chat was delightful and insightful, for both of us!

Upon returning home, I eagerly sat down to read his book. Barely into the first few pages, I realized just how beautiful and unique this work is.

My chosen road is usually paved by dirt, sand, leaves, or sticks and meant for travel on foot. If paved with macadam and meant for travel with a vehicle, my road travels through the wooded wonderlands of nature.

These are some photos that have crossed my path from various media outlets. Others I have taken with my phone while trekking through the woods. Many have appeared in other posts on my site. Some are brand new. Each one has whispered a unique message to my soul. Enjoy!!!